Shirky principle

Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution

– Clay Shirky

This is when industries can become so focused on the problem in which they are the solution to, that they often in fact perpetuate or even accentuate the problem. Adrian Miles, my university lecturer, relates this to the industry of journalism, in that traditional journalism is considered to be dying, as it is being replaced by online forms. What constitutes journalism is evolving. Take Twitter for example. Sure, The Age and all other news publications may have journalists tweeting for their online audience. However, news can be tweeted and read by anyone on Twitter. For example, if I just saw a car crash I could tweet: “Car crash on cnr Kooyong and North Rds. There are two ambulance cars at the scene. #crash #caraccident ”

So, is that journalism?

Now to relate journalism to the ‘Shirky principle’. The problem being that information is becoming more prevalent and is being produced by numerous sources and people. This is pushing journalists out of a job, as if news is increasingly being viewed online, where anyone can publish, journalists lose their authority. Rather than responding to this issue, journalists Adrian believes will focus too much on proving their transparency, mistaking that as their purpose and future.